Sports of The Times; What Can Lundqvist Do For Rangers?

By Dave Anderson

Published: March 1, 2006

ORIGINALLY, the Swedish hockey players were supposed to scatter, each to his own destination, after the Olympics in Turin, Italy, but when the team won the gold medal Sunday, the travel plans changed.

''We were told to get us to Stockholm, no matter what,'' Henrik Lundqvist said with a smile. ''It was a great day. We arrived Monday afternoon, had a bus into the city, all the people were there, we had a nice dinner and a nice party after that.''

As Lundqvist, the 23-year-old Swedish goaltender, put his luggage through a metal detector on arrival at the Stockholm airport, a customs inspector said: ''What do you have in that bag? It looks like metal.''

In the bag, of course, was an Olympic gold medal; the customs inspector already knew that.

Lundqvist wore the medal on a red ribbon last night. He did television interviews and posed for photos before the Rangers' Cheering for Children charity party at Madison Square Garden after arriving from Stockholm.

Not as heavy as Lundqvist's responsibility as an Olympic goaltender, and not as heavy as the expectations for him now as the Rangers resume their quest for the Stanley Cup playoffs after the embarrassment of not having qualified in seven consecutive seasons.

At 35-15-8, the Rangers are fifth in the N.H.L. and lead the Atlantic Division. Not that Lundqvist, a rookie, seems concerned about those expectations. ''It's been a great year so far,'' he said. ''I hope for an even better spring. I'm excited to be here. I love to play the game over here.''

With a lock of his black hair occasionally slipping over his eyes, Lundqvist appeared as cool as a goaltender must be when the puck and all those skaters and sticks are flying around him in a big game, as cool as he appeared in Sweden's tense 3-2 victory over Finland in the gold-medal game.

''I'm so relaxed now,'' he said, ''but I feel very excited to be back in New York with the Rangers.''

His 5-1 won-lost record and 2.33 goals against average in the Olympics were not aberrations. With a 17-3-3 record for the Rangers, he leads all N.H.L. goaltenders with a .927 save average and is tied for second with a 2.09 goals against average. Since N.H.L. players became eligible for the Olympics in 1998, the only other gold-medal goaltenders were two of the best: Martin Brodeur with Canada in 2002 and Dominik Hasek with the Czech Republic in 1998.

''He nailed the big one,'' Rangers Coach Tom Renney said. ''The question was, can he rise to the big game? And he did.''

For Henrik Lundqvist, known as Hank to his teammates, the big games have only begun. As big as the Olympics were, the Stanley Cup, at least in the context of the N.H.L., is bigger. But he and the Rangers know that if he rose to the occasion in the Olympics, he's capable of rising to it in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Not since Mike Richter was at his best more than a decade ago, notably in the Rangers' 1994 Cup victory, which ended a 54-year famine, has the team had this good a goaltender. And there's a 1994 omen involved. Four months before Mark Messier, Brian Leetch and Richter led the Rangers to that Cup celebration, Sweden's hockey team won the Olympic gold medal.

''That year I was just excited that Sweden won,'' Lundqvist said. ''To someday play in the Olympics was a goal I had.''

In Turin, he not only played in the Olympics, he was a teammate of three players who were his idols while growing up -- some say the three best hockey players in Swedish history -- center Peter Forsberg (Philadelphia Flyers), center Mats Sundin (Toronto Maple Leafs) and defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom (Detroit Red Wings).

When the final buzzer sounded Sunday, they and the rest of the Swedish team surrounded Lundqvist, hugged him and patted him on the helmet.

''As time goes by, you realize how tough it is to win the Olympics,'' Lundqvist said. ''If you don't win, it's four more years. Living the dream. Living the dream.''

But now there's another dream, the eternal dream of Ranger rooters: to win another Stanley Cup. To win it this year is probably too much to ask. Then again, the Rangers have a goaltender who, like Brodeur and Hasek, was on an Olympic gold-medal team.

And if Brodeur and Hasek helped win both the Olympics and a Stanley Cup, then maybe Henrik Lundqvist can, too.

Photos: Henrik Lundqvist played a key role in Sweden's gold-medal victory Sunday in Turin. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)(pg. D1); Henrik Lundqvist, right, showed off his gold medal while Jaromir Jagr wore his bronze last night. The Rangers return to action tomorrow. (Photo by G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)(pg. D4)